As the topic of professional development and growth within the company is pretty hot not only for us at SoftServe, but for the industry in general, I decided to share some observations and experience in the field.

My team has been designing a new professional development ecosystem for our associates which meets the latest IT industry trends, business requirements, and expectations of current associates and potential candidates. This system helps associates understand their strengths as well as those aspects that need to be improved. As a result, more than 6,200 employees have already had performance reviews in People Excellence, and we are very proud of it.

If you want to know why traditional approach doesn’t work anymore, what you can do to improve employee development system, I’d like to share our experience with you in this article.

Why have we decided to change our approach?

Speaking of the Ukrainian IT industry breakthrough, we use mainly quantitative indicators: export volume, increase rate, open vacancies, etc. However, from the perspective of the daily work, today, Ukrainian specialists are running more complicated and complex projects than 10 years ago. Therefore, training new specialists and encouraging their professional growth is vital for the IT industry development.

In the past, most of our projects were so-called "body shop" projects. Clients approached us with clearly defined technical tasks. The company should have had the specialists with the needed level of competencies required to complete those tasks. Professional development was mostly about deepening the knowledge and improving technical skills (in other words, it was mostly about hard skills).

Today, our ambitions and level of expertise have grown to the extent that we are becoming technological partners with our clients as we are responsible for the technological and business solution for most of our projects. To work at this level, we need to know and be capable of doing much more than just implementing a certain technology (although you can't work without it). Here, we are talking about a mix of hard and soft skills, leadership competencies, as well as understanding of the clients’ business.

What’s in it for the company?

Such technological partnerships open up more opportunities for companies to grow their businesses. And to do so, they need to actively invest in the professional development of their associates to be competitive in the global marketplace.

Under such conditions, for SoftServe and other representatives of the Ukrainian IT industry, it is vital to adapt their internal professional development ecosystems to encourage the associates to advance and go beyond the traditional limits. The key elements of such an ecosystem include the ability to properly establish associates' expectations in terms of the trajectory and speed of their development to fairly evaluate their professional progress, recognize their success, and plan their next steps.

It’s a win-win scenario for everyone:

Associates—grow professionally, reveal their potential, receive appropriate recognition and favorable conditions for development; they don't burn out and don't lose motivation and enthusiasm.
Company—does not lose (but, on the contrary, develops) its talents and becomes more attractive to the specialists from other companies; provides service of the highest quality and complexity, and therefore has the opportunity to develop its own business.

That's why at SoftServe, we have taken a holistic approach to combine the company interests with the needs of the associates and designed People Excellence—a new ecosystem of professional development allowing the associates to reveal their potential and the company to recognize its talents.

We began designing and gradually implementing this system back in 2019. Today, it works for all core areas, covering more than 90% of associates. We plan to cover the remaining part by the end of this year.

Before and after: what exactly has changed

The previous approach to the professional development of the associates, evaluation of their achievements, and promotion was developed more than 10 years ago to meet the needs of that time. In those days, it surely was an innovative system that enabled the company to grow its business for many years.

The system was based on the “level-by-level” evaluation criterion, specific to each level in each direction. There was a defined set of criteria for the associate to be promoted to the next level (from Junior to Middle, etc.). The process was clearly regulated.

The associate's performance was evaluated according to the following criteria:

Technical skills and knowledge — associates had to prove that their level of expertise had increased. There was a fixed list of what one needed to know and understand at each level.
Certifications — passing internal and external certifications.
Performance appraisal — a set of skills for the appropriate level of the corresponding competency.
English level — language skills that should meet the expectations for a defined technical level.
Years of experience.

The performance review included three stages:

Knowledge evaluation—to check whether the level of knowledge meets the expectation of the target level.
Performance appraisal—to check mainly soft skills and, to a lesser extent, performance and productivity.
Technical expertise evaluation—to check the level of English and external and internal certifications passed.

Thus, this approach was mainly based on the knowledge of an associate (it was knowledge-based). Promotion = number of years of experience + certifications + knowledge of theory + project work.

Such an approach was beneficial under the market conditions of that time when we were establishing and developing technological areas, when we needed to quickly educate and train young specialists and assure the alignment of the associates’ knowledge and skills. But, with the evolution of business and changes in the market, we started noticing some weak points. Therefore, we had to move forward and adapt to the current needs and new conditions.

The Knowledge-based approach (what you should know) has evolved into the Experience-based one (what you should do).

Rather than evaluating whether the associate’s level of knowledge is sufficient for them to be promoted, we now assess the actual work and its results. Here, we are guided by general competency matrices rather than “level-by-level” ones. For each professional direction or role, we have a common set of jobs to be done.

For example, to get promoted from Junior to Middle, a Software Engineer needs to take on duties of a Middle Engineer, i.e., develop simple modules independently according to the standards and implement solutions of medium complexity. To be promoted from Middle to Senior means to cover tasks of a Senior Engineer, i.e., develop complex modules and components, as well as discuss the requirements to the software with the customer.

If you do more complex jobs and bring more value to the customer, you grow faster. If you do the same work as you did a year ago, you stay at the same level. The emphasis is on the actual performance, value, and professional achievements.

Now, the performance review of an associate consists of four steps:

Self-evaluation — the associate completes the review form specifying all achievements for the evaluation period (not for the entire time of working on a project).
Technical expertise evaluation — a conversation with an independent technical expert to evaluate the progress towards using hard skills required to bring more value to a particular project.
Feedback — teammates, manager, and client provide feedback on the associate's work in the team, taking into account both hard and soft skills and contribution to the project.
Outcomes — a meaningful conversation with the manager to discuss the associate's progress, achievements, and next steps.

So, we have a clear understanding of what associates have learned, how they have contributed to the project, and what responsibilities they have taken. The results of the performance review are then compared with the competence matrix. Thus, the qualification level of the associate is determined. It can either be the same level or higher if the associate has made a big jump forward. Also, if this leap was significant, we can consider the promotion a few levels up (for example, from Trainee to Middle), applying a special procedure for such exceptional cases.

The way we design the process of objective evaluation

On the one hand, the evaluation process is much easier, as it is based on the actual work done, and it does not require any specific preparation from the associate’s side. On the other hand, it is difficult to ensure the impartiality and objectivity of the evaluation itself.

There are some bottlenecks that need to be dealt with effectively. Here are the key points that should be considered.

How to make sure that associates have stated their real accomplishments in the self-evaluation form?

The associate should be ready to provide a set of evidence—proof of each accomplishment when discussing it with an independent evaluator.

How to evaluate the achievements of an associate in an objective way?

We prepare and certify (according to the internal system) independent experts to evaluate the specialists of the corresponding direction and their real contribution to the project’s success.

The technical expertise is evaluated by an independent expert whose own level is usually 2 levels above the associate’s level. The expert gives an objective opinion and helps set up the next steps in the associate's professional development.

To evaluate soft skills and confirm the associate’s achievements, we consider the feedback from the manager, the client, and teammates.

Anyway, the human factor is still present, and therefore some disputable situations may occur. For example, an associate expects promotion, but the manager did not promote him/her based on the performance review results. How can we monitor such situations and react?

The independent team of experts that manages the People Excellence ecosystem has access to the information about all the associates and, if necessary, checks and ensures the objectivity of the process. If an associate or a manager does not agree with the results of the review, they can approach this with those experts. They will review the matter and help resolve the situation, sometimes even by scheduling a reevaluation.

If an associate has high scores in the competence matrix but is not promoted, this is a signal to us that this case requires our attention, maybe even our involvement and support. We understand that the risks of losing such associates increase, and such specialists may accept an offer from another company for a higher position.

Sometimes an associate plays more than one role on a project (e.g., PM and BA). If evaluating such specialists only according to the main profile, their actual contribution may be underestimated.

We can evaluate an associate according to two or more competence matrices at once.

If this associate decides to change the career path (switch from a project manager to a business analyst), they will not have to start from scratch or go through additional steps to confirm the expertise. All the previous achievements are stored in the system and will be considered immediately.

It's hard to implement new concepts. People are not always ready for it.

When introducing new approaches, it is crucial to pay attention to explaining and informing the teams. We held dozens (if not hundreds) of online training sessions where we answered associates’ questions.

We have actively worked with the managers, and now we continue to support them by explaining the benefits of the new approach and the principles of evaluating people. We help them solve challenging cases.

To sum up, according to the People Excellence ecosystem, everyone is at their own level according to the value they create, work they do, and the way they do it. From a business perspective, it makes sense—we focus on maximizing the value for our clients. We understand the strengths and weaknesses of our associates and can find the best possible vacancy–associate combination. It's also beneficial to the associates: they grow at the rate they aspire to and are ready for.